Friday, July 27, 2007

2. We are waiting to hear on several job opps for hubby. I am beyond worrying; it's more like an out-of-body experience now. Whatever happens will just happen.

3. Lots of job-job work to do. Love it. Lots of freelance work too. I'm not sure how that happened. Luckily, it's all my fav clients and the best projects I could hope for. Makes summer evenings delightful.

4. Victoria Beckham is my new celebrity crush. "That's so major" is my new saying, and I hope I don't bug my British coworkers too much by saying it.

5. Yard work weekend. My Mom gave me some great tips on making it quick and easy. I'm so stoked (word of the day, sorry).

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I am gratified by the editing I've received this week by several people. First up, my editor for these two articles I just turned in. I felt buoyed, not sunk; inspired, not chastised. I have a few rewrite issues to deal with but what a great experience! Kamiya, the author of the Salon piece, is right when he says,

"Good editors work with and not against a writer. They calibrate how aggressively they edit according to how good the writer is, how good the piece is, the type of piece it is, the kind of relationship they have with the writer, how tight the deadline is, and what mood they're in. But an editor's primary responsibility is not to the writer but to the reader. He or she must be ruthlessly dedicated to making the piece stronger. Since this is ultimately a subjective judgment, and quite a tricky one, a good editor needs to be as self-confident as a writer."

And the second set of editors is my critique group (I know, they don't think of themselves as editors, just as crit buddies, but they were so helpful; I'm not sure they really know how much) who took the first 2000 words of my fledgling novel and went through it line by line.

Seriously, I think heaven opened up and I saw the light. Not that I know exactly how to fix it, but I know that it's fixable and that's half the battle.

So, cheers to editors, crit groups, and to editors again.

It is the most fun to be edited when you are in fact an editor, I think. I've spent too many years editing everyone else without even knowing how good it feels and how cathartic it can be.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Jack Hart's book, Writer's Coach, had a great tip on approaching writing assignments.

Write a theme statement.

Hart says,

"I always start every piece of writing I do by thinking about what is the core thing that I really want to say. And the first thing that I always write is theme -- the word theme, t-h-e-m-e, colon -- and then try to come up with a theme statement that is a simple subject-predicate-object sentence that is my core idea."

Monday, July 23, 2007

1. Yes, I read HP7. Took me less than 7 hours on Saturday and it was good. Very good. No more info in case readers have not finished (like my hubby and friend, J).

2. We started packing and cleaning in preparation to sell. Heard from our realtor on Saturday and all that matters now is Todd's interviews. Send him good vibes, please.

3. Still raining up here. Makes it easier to weed, but harder to clean pine needles from our back yard. This will be fun.

4. Two articles are done and going in today. 2000-word section of WIP has been posted to crit group (finally, I am so slow doing this; forgive me crit group friends)

5. Packing up my office first; something slightly freeing about making my focus solely fiction for the next 15 months. I will sell a novel in 2008 with my writing goal buddy, Jen. We will! She's way ahead of me though, so I am striving to catch up!

My entire family is now home safe from Afghanistan and Iraq and no one else will be going over. You have no idea the relief it is to post this. Prayers for those who are still serving. We love and miss you.